A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 123

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188

USA > New York > A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 123

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The following extract from Vol. I of the "Transactions of the Society Instituted in the State of New York for the Promotion of Ag- riculture, Arts and Manufactures, in Febru- ary, 1791, will give some idea of the fertilizing effects, as well as the vast quantities of these fish which were taken, even at that early day. "Observations on Manures, by Ezra L'Hommedieu, Esq., read in March, 1795.

"Notwithstanding the great improvements which have been made in husbandry in differ- ent parts of Europe and America it is far from being ascertained what is the largest quantity of produce, which may be raised from a given quantity of land by manure. It will no doubt be much more than from the most fertile land in its natural state. I have heard of no in- stance of new land producing more wheat than forty-two bushels to the acre. In Suffolk county, some years ago, at Huntington, by manure fifty-two bushels of wheat were raised

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

to the acre. Since the practice in that county of manuring land by fish has been in use be- tween forty and fifty bushels of wheat from one acre is not an uncommon crop. And by a late accidental experiment, it apears that the product of grain from an acre will be in pro- portion to the quantity of this manure, and so far as to exceed any production we have heard of in any part of the world. A farmer in the town of Riverhead, in Suffolk county, Mr. Downs, having four thousand fish called mossbonkers or Menhaden, strewed them about the Ist of June on twenty rods of ground, being a poor, gravelly, dry soil, and which without manure would not pay for the tillage. These fish were plowed under a shallow furrow; at the time of sowing, about the last of September, the ground was plowed up again, and a little deeper; by har- rowing the putrefied fish were well mixed with the earth, and the ground sown with rye at the rate of one bushel to the acre. The ground being well covered in the fall, the rve was not injured in the winter ; in the spring the growth was remarkably rapid and luxuriant till it was about nine inches high, when his neighbor's sheep broke into the inclosure and eat it all off close to the ground. The fence was mend- ed and the rye grew again, and much thicker than before, till it got about six inches high, when the same sheep broke in again and the second time eat it. close to the ground. It was then supposed the crop would be lost, but it grew up again with additional thick- ness and great rapidity; it all stood well, the ears were very long and full and Mr. Downs assured me he had sixteen bushels of rye from his twenty rods of ground. This production was so extraordinary that al- though I could have no reason to doubt the assertion of Mr. Downs. I conversed with some of his neighbors on the subject, who had seen the rye growing at different times and just before harvest-they made no doubt of the fact, and observed the heads and thickness of the rye far exceeded anything they had seen or could have imagined. This piece of land was manured at the rate of thirty-two thou- sand fish per acre, which would cost, including the carting from the shore where they were taken, ten shillings per thousand, which would be sixteen pounds. The product would be one hundred and twenty-eight bushels, which at that time was worth eight shillings per bushel, which is fifty-one pounds four shillings. If

we allow three dollars for the plowing, gather- ing and threshing the grain per acre, with the straw, which will be fully adequate to the labor, there will remain eighty-five dollars clear of expense on the net proceeds of one acre of rye thus manured and produced. And Mr. Downs' profits on the twenty rods of rye were four pounds five shillings.

"Mr. Downs as well as his neighbors were of opinion that unless the accidents of the sheep eating off the rye twice had happened, the whole would have been lost by reason of its falling or lodging. If this opinion be right, by this experiment we are taught the necessity of cutting or feeding off the grain on lands highly manured, in order to preserve the crop. Perhaps the thicker such land is sown the less necessity there will be for cutting or feeding, as there will be more original strong stalks. Most of the lands in this country of the same quality will bring more bushels of wheat than rye-and I trust by improvements on this ex- periment, which was merely accidental, we may soon be informed of a much larger quan- tity of wheat being raised on an acre than hitherto has been raised in Europe or America.

"It was expected that the taking of these . fish in such large quantities on the sea coast for manure, would in a few years destroy them, but hitherto they have increased. This year I saw two hundred and fifty thousand taken at one draught, which must have been much more than one hundred tons. One seine near me caught more than one million the last season, which season lasts about one month. Various are the modes of manuring land by fish. Those that are taken early in the sea- son are by some carted on the land, spread lightly and plowed under the furrow for rais- ing Indian corn; this corn is taken off in the fall and the land plowed and sowed for wheat. By this mode they have two good crops by manuring once."

The eastern towns on Long island were, for the most part, originally settled on a dif- ferent basis from most of the other colonies of this country. They had no royal charter or proprietary patent as the foundation of civil government. Having purchased their lands of the original proprietors of the soil and secured a corresponding grant from the pat- entee, without any restrictions to their civil rights, they found themselves absolutely in a state of nature, possessing all the personal rights and privileges which the God of nature

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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

gave them, but without the semblance of authority one over another. From the neces- sity of the case they were thrown back upon the source of all legitimate authority, the sov- ereign people, and entered into a social com- pact, in which every man had an equal voice and equal authority. On this platform they founded a pure democracy, and for several years each town maintained a perfectly inde- pendent government, making their own laws in public town meeting and executing them by magistrates of their own appointment. And it is worthy of remark that the invaluable priv- ilege of trial by jury was at once introduced, though with this peculiarity, that a majority was sufficient to render a verdict. And when, afterwards, one town after another deemed it expedient to unite themselves with the larger colonies of New England, it was not because they felt themselves incapable of managing their own internal affairs, but solely for defense from foreign aggression. And the nature of the union was rather that of an al- liance, than of subjection.

Being thus trained up in the possession and exercise of all their natural rights and privileges, they exhibited through the whole course of their colonial existence, the most unyielding determination to maintain these sa- cred immunities. And in this they generally agreed to a man. It is a fact, though little known, but worthy of being handed down to posterity, that the declaration of rights and a solemn pledge not to submit to British taxa- tion, proposed in a meeting in the city of New York, April 29, 1775, and distributed for sig- natures in every town in the province, was signed by the 6th of July of that year by every man capable of bearing arms in the town of Easthampton, to the number of two hundred and eighty individuals. This is surely a much more notable fact than that since the establish- ment of the present government the elections of that town have often been returned without a dissenting vote, and the former gives a ready explanation of the latter. Similar unanimity, though not as entire, characterized the most of the towns of this county during "the times that tried men's souls."

There is another fact, however great the contrast with the present state of things, which gives this and the adjoining counties a conse- quence that has long since been lost sight of. There was a period, and that of some consider- able duration, when Long Island constituted

the great body of the province of New York. It was the first occupied by actual immigrants for the purpose of a permanent settlement and agricultural pursuits. Here the first churches were organized and the first towns formed. And in the easternmost town, within less than twenty miles of Montauk Point, and at Flat- bush, near the western extremity, the first in- corporated academies in the great state of New York were erected and put in successful opera- tion.

The first Assembly of Deputies that the representative of royal power condescended to convoke for consultation, the year after the surrender of the province to British arms, was held at Hempstead March 1, 1665, and (with the exception of two) was composed entirely of representatives from the several towns of the island.

The first Legislative Assembly convened in 1683, was not only procured through the re- monstrances and demands of Long Island more than any other part of the colony, but was in a great measure made up of its rep- resentatives. The first speaker in that body was either then or afterwards a resident of the island, and the same office was afterwards held by one of its representatives sixteen out of twenty-one years. Though now regarded as the mere "fag-end," Long Island was once both the body and soul of the province of New York. Nor has she deteriorated in her in- trinsic worth, though she has been completely lost sight of and almost cast into oblivion in the extending glory of a great commonwealth, which has arrogated to itself the proud title of the "Empire State."

But patriotic views and love of national liberty do not constitute the chief glory of old Suffolk. It is her primitive puritanism which it is believed has been illustrated here, in piety towards God and love to men, for two hun- dred years, and now exists in more of its orig- inal purity than can be found on any other spot of equal extent on the American continent. Let it be proclaimed in trumpet-tongued ac- cents that 'here no man was ever persecuted and disfranchised for his religious opinions, nor man or woman executed for heresy or witchcraft. On the contrary, from the first or- ganization of their civil institutions, they or- dained the widest toleration of religious opin- ions, so long as it was not exercised for the seduction of others and the injury of the com- munity, and that, too, while as yet such an

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article had not been enacted, if it had been conceived, on the continent of America.

From the natural reserve of a people brought up in seclusion from the rest of the world, which still, in a measure, distinguishes them, these traits of character may not be readily recognized by the casual observer. But

if the present generation have not greatly de- generated from the sentiments and practices of their immediate predecessors, among whom the writer spent some of the happiest years of his early life, a residence of a few months or even weeks among these primitive people on the east end will afford complete conviction of the correctness of these remarks.

THE VANDEVERE RESIDENCE.

BARN.

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND.

BY MARC F. VALLETTE, LL. D., PRESIDENT OF THE BROOKLYN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

PART I .- THE PRE-DIOCESAN PERIOD.

T MAY be a matter of no little surprise to Long Islanders to know that their island was colonized by Catholics as far back as 1634, and that it is almost coeval with Maryland in giving Catholics shelter from non-Catholic persecution and at the same time offering an asylum to non- Catholics fleeing from the persecution of their co-religionists ; yet such is a fact.

The first constitution of the colony of New Jersey, or, as it is known in its first charter, the province of New Albion (which comprised New Jersey and Long Island, in the present State of New York), proclaimed religious toleration to all, in these words :

"No persecution to any dissenting, and to all such, as the Walloons, free chapels ; and to punish all as seditious, and for contempt, as bitterly rail and condemn others of the con- trary; for the argument or persuasion of Re- ligion, Ceremonies, or Church Discipline, should be acted in mildness, love, and charity, and gentle language, not to disturb the peace or quiet of the inhabitants."

The Catholic leader of this Colony, and per- haps the first Englishman that settled New Jersey, was Sir Edmund Plowden, a member of an old Saxon family of Shropshire, Eng- land, whose antiquity is amply established by the meaning of the surname, "Kill-Dane."

This gentleman, with other noble "adventur- ers," petitioned King Charles I for a patent under His Majesty's seal of Ireland, for "Manitie, or Long Isle," and "thirty miles. square of the coast next adjoining, to be erected into a County Palatine called Lyon, to be held of 'his Majesty's Crown of Ireland,'" etc .*

This island of "Manitie or Long Isle" was also known as the Isle of Plowden, for in the charter of Charles I the King gives to Ed- mund Plowden "all that entire island near the continent or terra firma, * * called the * Isle of Plowden or Long Island, and lying near or between the 39th and 40th degree of north latitude." There were "four Kings on Long Isle, with about eight hundred bowmen ;" and a chivalric order, the "Albion Knights," was established "for the conversion of the twenty- three Kings" or twenty-three Indian tribes. residing within the entire limits of Sir Ed- mund Plowden's grant.

*See Burke's Commoners and Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, under "Plowden;" Baker's North- amptonshire, under "Fermor;" the Visitation of Ox- fordshire, published by the Harleian Society; Records of' the English Province of the Society of Jesus, by Henry Foley, S. J. London, 1875-82. Winsor's Narra- tive and Critical History of America, vol. III, p. 457, Rev. R. L. Burtsell, D. D., in Catholic World for July, 1875.

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The number of persons who resided in New Albion, and especially on Long Island, under the rule of the Plowdens is difficult to ascertain. That there were settlers on the Isle . of Plowden is sufficiently established, but how many and what became of them is shrouded in mystery. Religious persecutions and civil commotions in England contributed largely to preventing Sir Edmund Plowden and his Catholic associates from realizing their plans for colonizing New Albion, as they had fondly hoped to do, but the fact remains that Long Island formed part of a province founded by a Catholic, with the purpose of securing entire freedom of religion to all within its limits. "Calvert and Roger Williams," says Mul- ford in his "History of New Jersey," "have been represented as standing entirely alone" as the exponents of religious liberty to all, "until the appearance of Penn. This is not just or true. * *

* Though Plowden's designs were not successful, though the work he projected fell short of completion, yet he deserves to be ranked with the benefactors of our race, and New Albion is entitled to a higher place in the history of human progress than is often allotted to older and greater and more fortunate States."

We have seen above that there were Cath- olic settlers on Long Isle as far back as 1648. Father Jogues, in his "Novum Belgium" ( 1643- 44), mentions the existence of some Catholics in the vicinity in his time; in 1654 the Jesuit LeMoyne visited New York from time to time and administered to the wants of the Catholics in the vicinity ; in 1657 we find a Frenchman, Nicholas by name, living in Walebrocht, who refused to pay an assessment of six guilders for the support of Dominie Polhemus on the "frivolous excuse" that he was a Catholic. The poor fellow was obliged to pay twelve guilders instead of six! In 1756 Long Island received quite an accession of Catholics in the Arcadian exiles who found homes in Kings, Queens and Suffolk counties.

The earliest Catholic of distinction con-

nected with Long Island, and whose name has come down to us, was Thomas Dongan, Gov- ernor of New York, who in 1683 convoked the first General Assembly of New York, which granted the celebrated Charter of Liberties recognizing freedom of conscience. In 1688 he retired to his farm at Hempstead. The Dongan white oak, "which had become his- torical as a monumental tree, being named in the patent of Governor Dongan which estab- lished the boundary lines of Brooklyn, was felled to the ground in the days of the Revo- lution for the construction of rude fortifica- tions. The stern exigencies of war had called for its sacrifice ; and its great branches, filling a narrow lane, proved a formidable though temporary obstacle to the enemy's advance."*

Governor Dongan "and his fellow worship- pers met in a little chapel" for religious pur- poses. Here no doubt mass was offered up by the English Jesuit Fathers that the Gov- ernor had brought with him to counteract the influence of the French Jesuits among the Indians in the upper part of the State. The early Brooklyn Catholics were obliged to cross the East River in order to hear mass on Sun- days. There were no ferry boats then, nor great bridges, and crossing the river in row- boats or flat-boats was often attended with danger, especially in winter, when the river was filled with floating ice.

Old St. James' .- Prior to 1822 there was not a Catholic church on Long Island, but in that year (on January Ist) the Catholics of the village of Brooklyn resolved that "what- ever they did in word or work" should be done "all in the name of Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father, through Him." They wanted "their children instructed in the

*The Battle of Long Island, by Thomas W. Field .- The little bluff on the east, commanding the Flatbush and old Post roads at their junction in the Valley Grove was the sight of a two-gun battery which enfiladed the former road, up which the Hessians marched to assist Sullivan's lines on August 27, 1776. A few rods in front of this battery and almost in the center of the Flatbush road stood the Dongan oak.

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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND.

principles of our Holy Religion," and "more convenience in hearing the word of God them- selves."

A society was formed with the approbation of the Rt. Rev. John Connolly, O. P., D. D., then Bishop of New York, for the purpose of securing the ends in view, and on January 7th the first meeting was held at the residence of Peter Turner, at the southeast corner of Wash- ington and Front streets. Associated with Peter Turner were James M. Laughlin and William Purcell. After a careful examination it appeared that only seventy men were able to give any assistance to the good work under- taken, and some of these, not being able to contribute money, generously offered the labor of their hands. On March 2d eight lots of ground were bought at the corner of Jay and Chapel streets, for $800; of this amount $500 was paid in cash and a mortgage was given for the balance. It must be borne in mind that these good men, while acting with the approval of the Bishop of New York, under whose jurisdiction Brooklyn was at that time, were also working under great disadvantages. They were without the aid or guidance of a pastor, and although they made many earnest and repeated requests for one, the Bishop had none to give them. They were entirely de- pendent on the kindness of the Very Rev. John Power, of St. Peter's Church, Barclay street, New York, who, whenever opportunity offered, crossed the East River in a row-boat and said mass for them in a private house. Sometimes his place would be taken by Fathers Richard Bulger, Auley McCauley, Michael O'Gorman, Patrick McKenna and others, and these good Fathers would offer up mass in Mr. Depsey's "Long Room" in Fulton street. The first mass celebrated in Brooklyn was by the Rev. Philip Lariscy, O. S. A., at the resi- dence of Mr. William Purcell, at the northeast corner of York and Gold streets.

Perseverance, such as these good people displayed in the face of so many difficulties, could not go unrewarded. They had purchased

ground for the erection of a church and also for a burial ground; they had this ground blessed on the feast of St. Mark (April 25) by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Connolly, and they had taken courage from the kind words of Rev. Richard Bulger, who preached on that occasion. Slowly but surely the first Catholic Church in Brooklyn advanced toward completion. On December 31, 1822, the following trustees were incorporated un- der the general act: George S. Wise, Peter Turner, William Purcell, D. Dawson, P. Scan- lan, W. Mclaughlin and J. Rose. The work went on, but it was still impossible to give them a resident pastor, as there were only eight priests in the entire diocese of New York at that time. On the 28th of August, 1823, Bishop Connolly dedicated the new church to the honor and glory of God, under the invoca- tion of St. James. The interior of the church was yet unfinished, and upon an altar con- structed of a few boards roughly put together the Rev. John Shanahan said the first mass. The sermon was preached by Very Rev. Dr. Power. The children of the new and still pastorlesss parish required attention, and on the 12th of the following month, J. Mehaney* was appointed schoolmaster, sexton, and care- taker of the graveyard which had just been leveled and fenced in. The amount of money expended up to this time was $7,118.16, quite an amount for those days. The most strenu- ous efforts were still made to secure a resident pastor.

The Rev. Patrick M. Kenna, who had min- istered to these persevering and energetic Catholics with some degree of regularity, died on Oct. 4, 1824, and was buried in St. James' churchyard. This was a severe blow to the new and struggling congregation, but they were not discouraged. In January, 1825, they sent through the Very Rev. Dr. Power some $220 to Ireland to the Rev. Father Duffy, in

*Mr. Mehany was the first Catholic schoolmaster in Brooklyn.

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the hope of securing his services as their pas- tor ; but, as he declined to come at that time, the money was returned. It was not until the following April that Dr. Power, acting as Ad- ministrator of the Diocese of New York, the Bishop being in Europe at the time, was able to send a pastor to St. James'. This was the Rev. John Farnan, * who became "the first res- ident clergyman and who received $600 a year and house rent free." During his pastorate he introduced the Sisters of Charity, who took charge of a school opened in the basement of the church, and in other ways advanced the condition of a parish which was only too ready to second him in every good work undertaken. But his pastorate did not last very long.

In 1832 Father Farnan was succeeded by Rev. Jolın Walsh, a student of St. Mary's, Montreal, and who had been ordained five years before (1827) by Bishop Dubois. Fa- ther Walsh is regarded by many of the old St. James' people as the real founder of the mis- sion. His pastorate lasted over ten years, and was marked by great zeal for the welfare of his people. While at St. James' Father Walsh visited the Catholic families at Sag Harbor, Flushing and Staten Island.

In 1834 an act was passed "incorporating the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum Society in the City of Brooklyn in the County of Kings." From this we see that the building of old St. James' was soon followed by a move toward the education of Catholic children and a tender care for the orphans. (Reference to the Orphan Asylum will be made further on.)

During his pastorate Father Walsh was as- sisted successively by Rev. James Dougherty, who died March 29, 1841 ; Rev. Philip Gillick, Rev. Patrick Danahar, and Rev. James Mc- Donough. Father Walsh died at Harlem, Aug- ust 8, 1852, aged sixty-seven years. As an evi- dence of the high esteem in which he was held by his superiors it may be stated that

"Bishop Dubois, who ordained him, had af- firmed of him years before that of all clergy of the Diocese Father Walsh was primus inter optimos." For ten years or so, until 1841, he labored throughout the whole extent of Long Island, building churches, and then resigned in order to become a Trappist, in Mount Mell- eray, Ireland. But his love for souls led him back again to missionary life," * and on his return to the United States he became pastor of St. Paul's Church, Harlem. His successor at St. James was the Rev. Charles Smith, who remained there until 1847, and enlarged the old church.

St. Paul's .- In the meantime the number of Catholics in Brooklyn had been increasing in number. They began to spread over the city and it was not long before St. James was too far away to suit the convenience of those who lived on the other side of Fulton street. The truly Catholic perseverance which had marked . the early struggle of the people of old St. James' had strengthened their faith and awak- ened a spirit of selt-sacrifice. Cornelius Hee- ney, a man of means and of heart too, was ready to do his part towards the erection of another church. In 1835 he gave the piece of land valued at $8,000 and formerly offered to St. James', situated at the corner of Court and Congress Streets, and in the following year St. Paul's was erected upon it. It was built of brick, 72 feet by 125 feet, at a cost of somewhere about $20,000. The debts in- curred in its erection were generously shared in by the good people of St. James', a truly Christian but rather unusual proceeding now- adays. St. Paul's Church was dedicated by Bishop Dubois and his coadjutor, the Rt. Rev. John Hughes, D. D. The first regular pastor was Rev. Richard Waters, who remained only two years, 1838-1840; but during that time he established a parochial school, which he placed under the care of the Sisters of Charity, and

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 123

Author: Ross, Peter. cn Publication date: 1902 Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1188

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188